Dorothy Sayers - Whose Body?

«Friday.»

«Friday; yes. Turn back again. What comes before that?»

Mr. Piggott shook his head.

«Do your drawings of legs begin on the right-hand page or the left-hand page? Can you see the first drawing?»

«Yes — yes — I can see the date written at the top. It's a section of a frog's hind leg, on the right-hand page.»

«Yes. Think of the open book in your mind's eye. What is opposite to it?»

This demanded some mental concentration.

«Something round — coloured — oh, yes — it's a hand.»

«Yes. You went on from the muscles of the hand and arm to leg– and foot-muscles?»

«Yes; that's right. I've got a set of drawings of arms.»

«Yes. Did you make those on the Thursday?»

«No; I'm never in the dissecting-room on Thursday.»

«On Wednesday, perhaps?»

«Yes; I must have made them on Wednesday. Yes; I did. I went in there after we'd seen those tetanus patients in the morning. I did them on Wednesday afternoon. I know I went back because I wanted to finish 'em. I worked rather hard — for me. That's why I remember.»

«Yes; you went back to finish them. When had you begun them, then?»

«Why, the day before.»

«The day before. That was Tuesday, wasn't it?»

«I've lost count — yes, the day before Wednesday — yes, Tuesday.»

«Yes. Were they a man's arms or a woman's arms?»

«Oh, a man's arms.»

«Yes; last Tuesday, a week ago to-day, you were dissecting a man's arms in the dissecting-room. Sixpence, please.»

«By Jove!»

«Wait a moment. You know a lot more about it than that. You've no idea how much you know. You know what kind of man he was.»

«Oh, I never saw him complete, you know. I got there a bit late that day, I remember. I'd asked for an arm specially, because I was rather weak in arms, and Watts — that's the attendant — had promised to save me one.»

«Yes. You have arrived late and found your arm waiting for you. You are dissecting it — taking your scissors and slitting up the skin and pinning it back. Was it very young, fair skin?»

«Oh, no — no. Ordinary skin, I think — with dark hairs on it — yes, that was it.»

«Yes. A lean, stringy arm, perhaps, with no extra fat anywhere?»

«Oh, no — I was rather annoyed about that. I wanted a good, muscular arm, but it was rather poorly developed and the fat got in my way.»

«Yes; a sedentary man who didn't do much manual work.»

«That's right.»

«Yes. You dissected the hand, for instance, and made a drawing of it. You would have noticed any hard calluses.»

«Oh, there was nothing of that sort.»

«No. But should you say it was a young man's arm? Firm young flesh and limber joints?»

«No-no.»

«No. Old and stringy, perhaps.»

«No. Middle-aged — with rheumatism. I mean, there was a chalky deposit in the joints, and the fingers were a bit swollen.»

«Yes. A man about fifty.»

«About that.»

«Yes. There were other students at work on the same body.»

«Oh, yes.»

«Yes. And they made all the usual sort of jokes about it.»

«I expect so — oh, yes!»

«You can remember some of them. Who is your local funny man, so to speak?»

«Tommy Pringle.»

«What was Tommy Pringle doing?»

«Can't remember.»

«Whereabouts was Tommy Pringle working?»

«Over by the instrument-cupboard — by sink C.»

«Yes. Get a picture of Tommy Pringle in your mind's eye.»

Piggott began to laugh.

«I remember now. Tommy Pringle said the old Sheeny —»

«Why did he call him a Sheeny?»

«I don't know. But I know he did.»

«Perhaps he looked like it. Did you see his head?»

«No.»

«Who had the head?»

«I don't know — oh, yes, I do, though. Old Freke bagged the head himself, and little Bouncible Binns was very cross about it, because he'd been promised a head to do with old Scrooger.»

«I see; what was Sir Julian doing with the head?»

«He called us up and gave us a jaw on spinal haemorrhage and nervous lesions.»

«Yes. Well, go back to Tommy Pringle.»

Tommy Pringle's joke was repeated, not without some embarrassment.

«Quite so. Was that all?»

«No. The chap who was working with Tommy said that sort of thing came from overfeeding.»

«I deduce that Tommy Pringle's partner was interested in the alimentary canal.»

«Yes; and Tommy said, if he'd thought they'd feed you like that he'd go to the workhouse himself.»

«Then the man was a pauper from the workhouse.»

«Well, he must have been, I suppose.»

«Are workhouse paupers usually fat and well-fed?»

«Well, no — come to think of it, not as a rule.»

«In fact, it struck Tommy Pringle and his friend that this was something a little out of the way in a workhouse subject?»

«Yes.»

«And if the alimentary canal was so entertaining to these gentlemen, I imagine the subject had come by his death shortly after a full meal.»

«Yes — oh, yes — he'd have had to, wouldn't he?»

«Well, I don't know,» said Lord Peter. «That's in your department, you know. That would be your inference, from what they said.»

«Oh, yes. Undoubtedly.»

«Yes, you wouldn't, for example, expect them to make that observation if the patient had been ill for a long time and fed on slops.»

«Of course not.»

«Well, you see, you really know a lot about it. On Tuesday week you were dissecting the arm muscles of a rheumatic middle-aged Jew, of sedentary habits, who had died shortly after eating a heavy meal, of some injury producing spinal haemorrhage and nervous lesions, and so forth, and who was presumed to come from the workhouse.»

«Yes.»

«And you could swear to those facts, if need were?»

«Well, if you put it that way, I suppose I could.»

«Of course you could.»

Mr. Piggott sat for some moments in contemplation.

«I say,» he said at last, «I did know all that, didn't I?»

«Oh, yes — you knew it all right — like Socrates's slave.»

«Who's he?»

«A person in a book I used to read as a boy.»

«Oh — does he come in “The Last Days of Pompeii”?»

«No — another book — I daresay you escaped it. It's rather dull.»

«I never read much except Henty and Fenimore Cooper at school… But — have I got rather an extra good memory, then?»

«You have a better memory than you credit yourself with.»

«Then why can't I remember all the medical stuff? It all goes out of my head like a sieve.»

«Well, why can't you?» said Lord Peter, standing on the hearthrug and smiling down at his guest.

«Well,» said the young man, «the chaps who examine one don't ask the same sort of questions you do.»

«No?»

«No — they leave you to remember all by yourself. And it's beastly hard. Nothing to catch hold of, don't you know? But, I say — how did you know about Tommy Pringle being the funny man and —»

«I didn't, till you told me.»

«No; I know. But how did you know he'd be there if you did ask? I mean to say — I say,» said Mr. Piggott, who was becoming mellowed by influences themselves not unconnected with the alimentary canal — «I say, are you rather clever, or am I rather stupid?»

«No, no,» said Lord Peter, «it's me. I'm always askin' such stupid questions, everybody thinks I must mean somethin' by 'em.»

This was too involved for Mr. Piggott.

«Never mind,» said Parker, soothingly, «he's always like that. You mustn't take any notice. He can't help it. It's premature senile decay, often observed in the families of hereditary legislators. Go away, Wimsey, and play us the “Beggar's Opera”, or something.»

«That's good enough, isn't it?» said Lord Peter, when the happy Mr. Piggott had been despatched home after a really delightful evening.